


Exit Wounds

by Bluebox_Parchment



Series: Finding You 'Verse [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Temporary Character Death, Castiel Makes a Deal with The Shadow (Supernatural), Dean Winchester Dreams about Castiel, Dean Winchester Saves Castiel, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Grief/Mourning, Grieving Dean Winchester, M/M, Minor Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Season/Series 15, Suicidal Dean Winchester, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death, brief mentions of dean's time in hell so warnings on that, but literally it's blink and you miss it, dean dealing with cas' death, gratuitous use of show quotes for e m p h a s i s, in the sense that dean tells cas that he loves him before cas was taken to the empty, minor noncon elements, show-adjacent allusions to drowley, specifically dean and crowleys summer of love, the chapter dealing with such will have a warning, un beta'd we die like men, well sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:15:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26397016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluebox_Parchment/pseuds/Bluebox_Parchment
Summary: Dean had made a promise; that he would keep trying to live. But when the sun still rises on a Godless universe, Dean doesn't find it as easy to carry on. Especially when Cas seems determined to haunt his every step.A post-s15 fic, full of grief and angst and learning to live with losing the one that you love.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Finding You 'Verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948945
Comments: 50
Kudos: 201
Collections: Destiel, Ships, The Destiel Self-Rec Favs Collection





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't really written anything in months, save for a few hundred words here and there. And then the extended 'Run Baby Run' promo came out and I was suddenly unstoppable. Over 15k words in less than a week. Who knew all it took was knowing Dean Winchester would finally see Castiel cry? Not me!
> 
> A very big thank you to my dear friends Angemicwings and NinjaPlato for listening to me ramble and wail at them in regards to this fic.

_And I hurt so bad, that I search my skin_   
_For the entry point, where love went in_

In the end, it’s laughably easy. The sun still rises on a Godless universe, remains warm and giving. The seams of reality don’t begin to fray, the world still turns. Billie had known what she was doing after all. 

Dean glances over to the kid, triumph in those golden glowing eyes. ‘We did it!’ he says excitedly and he runs to Dean, throws his arms around him and hugs tightly. Then he’s stepped away and is hugging Sam too. ‘We actually did it!’

Sam holds him by the shoulders, goofy grin in place. There’s still blood dripping sluggishly from the cut on his brow, but with a shimmer of gold it knits itself back together. ‘ _You_ did it, Jack.’

He beams, eyes crinkling at the corners. It’s a childish smile, betraying his true age in spite of the teenage body he wears. ‘So, what do we do now?’ he asks, looking expectantly from Dean, to Sam and then back again.

‘Sleep?’ Sam offers, wry grin on his face.

Dean thinks that sounds great, but he knows there’s no way sleep’ll come for him any time soon. His fingers itch to get behind the wheel of the Impala, he feels restless, stood here now, unmoving on the shores of the lake they had once burned Cas’ body. The shore where five minutes ago, God himself was finally reaped. 

Something monumental and world-changing always seems to happen on a water’s edge.

He fiddles with the keys, looks to Sam, and knows already that his brother has his back, regardless of this next step. ‘You - uh - you guys go on ahead.’

Jack pauses, brow furrowed, and he looks so much like Cas that the sight catches his breath. He tilts his head and it’s all Dean can do to remain upright. 'But aren't you coming with us?' Jack asks.

He glances back to Sam, a silent plea for understanding, and his brother nods infinitesimally. Dean shakes his head, a tight smile forced upon his face, and he turns towards Baby without another word.

‘Dean!’ Jack calls out. Part of him yearns to turn at the sound of his name. It’s the part of him that John ingrained into him with a firm hand on the shoulder and a gruff command of, ‘Look out for Sammy.’ The part that held his brother close when he fell and scraped his knee, or was crying after a nightmare. The part that had taught him how to tie his shoelaces, and how to drive. It’s the part of him that’s a parent and it kills him to have to leave his kids behind. 

But it’ll kill him faster to stay.

~~~

The sun chases him across state lines and he drives without a destination in mind. He just wants to put as many miles between him and that cursed shoreline as Baby’s wheels will carry him. The ghostly memory of running from Stull prickles down his spine. He knows he should be grateful. This time around he didn’t have to watch his baby brother throw himself into damnation with the devil. But then, that time around there’d been an angel sitting to his right, pissy scowl on his face. ‘What was it you asked, Cas?’ he asks thin air. ‘Peace or freedom?’

He trains his eyes on the horizon, keeps pounding the tarmac with his wheels, ignores the dents to Baby’s hood that he can see through the windscreen. He sighs heavily, somehow it still feels like the weight of the whole world is set upon his shoulders. ‘You.’ The word is acid on his tongue. ‘I’d rather have you.’ His vision blurs, a single tear tracking down his cheek. ‘Cursed or not.’

~~~

  
He pulls into a Gas’n’Sip some 24 hours later to fill the tank and grab some snacks for the road. He’s got a six-pack under his arm and a handful of candy bars like he’s not pushing 40. They all smash across the linoleum when he catches sight of the dark haired cashier out of the corner of his eye. Same stupid blue vest as every other goddamned gas stop across the country. Same stupid blue vest he once watched Cas shrug out of into nothing but a white cotton dress shirt, skin of his neck exposed so temptingly, begging for the soft brush of lips against his warm skin.

He barely gets back outside before vomiting in amongst the weeds growing through the dirty gravel.


	2. Chapter 2

_An hour in real time passes like the second on a broken clock  
I stay in bed all day just to realise that this’ll be the third on the trot  
I set the foundation for a life that I don’t know how to build.  
And I take a step backwards and I fall down the same old hills._

He buys the rundown shell of a bar using the card Charlie had got them. If the realtor wonders why a guy with blank-cheque credit drops fifteen grand on little more than framework, he doesn’t make a comment; just hands over the keys with an insincere smile.

It’s about three hours from Lebanon, on the outskirts of a tiny town on the edge of the I-70, not far from the border with Colorado. The perfect spot for sporadic passing traffic, and right in the middle of hunter heartland. He raps his knuckles on the door jam and sips at a lukewarm beer, frowning. The more you try to get away, the closer to home you find yourself, he supposes. A niggling voice in the back of his head, the one that sounds suspiciously like Cas, tells him he should call Sam and let him know where he is. 

‘Can’t do that yet,’ he says, looking at his cell. Rather than hit call, he swipes through his settings and switches on his GPS instead. ‘Call it a compromise.’ If he knows his brother, he knows he’ll be keeping tabs on Dean through various different means - tracking spells and hacked CCTV footage - and he figures there’s no point keeping it off. It’s not like he’s running and he sure as hell ain’t hiding. 

He starts making a mental list of what’ll need doing to get the place patched up. The paintwork is peeling, the realtor had mentioned an infestation of rats that might’ve chewed through some of the wiring. The plumbing will need checking and the windows fixing. But the framework is solid, and he can imagine what it could look like if he put one foot in front of the other and got to work.

‘Not really sure what I’m doing, y’know.’ He knows Cas isn’t there, knows that he’s gone to a place where he can no longer hear him, but still, he talks. 

‘You said you would try and live a life,’ he imagines Cas saying. ‘It was the last thing you promised me.’

‘Dirty trick that,’ he says around the bottle. 

‘Not a trick.’

He looks down at the now-empty beer, wishes it were something stronger. ‘No. No I guess it wasn’t.’

He slumps into a rickety old chair, scrubs a hand down his face. ‘Think I can make this work?’ He picks at the label on the bottle and huffs a laugh. ‘Dunno why I’m asking. Not like you’re going to answer.’ His eyes sting with salt. He’d been crying so much the last couple weeks he’s surprised he’s still got tears left in him. 

Reckless abandon comes over him, and he pulls up his voicemail inbox, calling before he can stop himself. ‘Dean?’ Cas’ voice comes through the speaker a little tinny, but unmistakably pissed. Even now he can hear Cas’ eyes rolling down the screen. ‘Damnit, Dean, pick up the phone. I have a lead on Chuck. Call me.’

The cell skids across the table, the bottle rolls onto the floor and cracks. Dean drops his head into his hands and weeps. ‘Never did call you back.’

~~~

It takes six weeks to find the right stretch of wood to sand into the bar. The mill he sourced it from can’t understand why anyone would want it; it’s over ten years felled and petrified from some bizarre natural phenomenon that flattened an entire copse of trees, which is nothing to say of the charred bolt running through the middle, like lightning through the veins. 

He burns through several grand to get it shipped from the mill in Illinois and the night before it arrives, he dreams of the Pit: wakes up sweating, screaming, and for half a second he thinks he’s trapped underground in a coffin again, about to claw out of his own grave. This time around there’s no high pitched, ear bleeding screech chasing him through Pontiac, culminating in a sigil-covered barn as heaven touched down in the eye of a storm. 

‘It’s a strange bit o’wood you gotch’yerself, buddy,’ says the guy that helps him unload the wood from the truck. His overalls name him Matthew and Dean offers him a tight smile by way of reply.

But Matthew doesn’t seem content with not prying and instead pops a cigarette between his lips and lights up. ‘I was there when we helped clear this lot,’ he tells Dean, giving the wood a curious pat. 

‘Yeah?’ Dean asks, an old sense of curiosity nudging at the back of his brain. It had looked terrifying when he dug up out of the dirt but he hadn’t given much thought to the people that would’ve had to have cleared up the aftermath.

Matthew nods fervently, blowing smoke up into the air. ‘Looked like a bomb had gone off.’ He takes another long drag of his cigarette. ‘Cops said it was a natural phenomenon, but,’ he hesitates, fear flickering across his features.

He still sees it sometimes. The ring of collapsed trees that he had to clamber through to get to a road. He never did ask Cas why he threw his soul back into his body whilst he was still buried six feet under. 

Matthew is close to Bobby in age and demeanour, all rough edges and grizzled grey beard, and Dean sizes him up. He doesn’t know what possesses him to do it but he leans forwards a fraction and says in an undertone, ‘Wanna know why I paid so much for this particular bit of tree?’

‘Sure.’

‘The epicenter of those trees? There was a grave.’

Matthew’s eyes bug wide, his cigarette drops to the floor. ‘How do you know that?’

Dean smiles, feels vicious and cruel in a way he hasn’t for a long time. ‘Cause, it was mine.’

He feels no pride, no sense of achievement when Matthew scrambles back a step, dirt scuffing his boots as he stumbles towards the cab of his truck. 

The voice that sounds so much like Cas says, ‘That was unnecessary, Dean.’

He ignores it, hefting the wood onto his shoulder and into the out-building he’s been using as a workshop. It smells of sawdust and varnish, and Dean flicks on the lighting, filling the room with a sickly yellow phosphorescent glow. ‘So was making me crawl out of my own grave, but you never heard me complaining.’

~~~

The sun is starting to dip towards the horizon, setting the sky ablaze in hues of orange and pink. The light dances across the lake which splashes gently against the dock beneath them. There’s a pair of fishing rods dipped lazily in the water, concentric ripples billowing across the surface.

Cas sits across from him on a khaki chair with a beer in hand. He’s wearing one of Dean’s old flannel shirts, a blue plaid that brings out the colour of his eyes. There’s a rip in the knee of his jeans, and heavy duty boots with dust on the soles. He’s got a pair of aviators on, and his face turned towards the warmth of the setting sun. Dean’s seen whole other universes but this right here is the most astonishing thing he’s ever laid eyes on. 

‘You’re staring,’ Cas says without even inclining his head in Dean’s direction.

His mouth goes dry, his pulse races. ‘You’re beautiful.’ A flush spreads across his cheeks but it’s just the two of them and even if it weren’t, he’s not ashamed to be heard saying it.

A small smile tugs at the corner of Cas’ mouth, and Dean is visited by a fleeting idea of leaning over and kissing him. ‘That’s very nice of you to say.’

He takes a mouthful of beer, pushes up out of the chair and moves until he’s standing in between the v of Cas’ legs. Slowly, Cas turns his face to look up at Dean, the sudden shadows cast from Dean’s body highlighting the sun-blush of Cas’ cheeks. Dean reaches towards him, unhooks the sunglasses and tosses them into his now-vacant chair. He plants his hands on the arms of the fold-up chair and leans into Cas’ personal space.

Those blue eyes flicker up at him through dark lashes, something glorious shining in them. And then Cas has bridged the gap between them, pressed his lips to Dean’s, his hands on his hips dragging him even further forwards. 

Dean breaks the kiss, leans his forehead to Cas’ and sighs with contentment, trying to hold onto this moment for eternity. ‘I love you, you know?’

‘I do.’ Cas’ lips ghost against his. ‘Your love is the most precious thing to me.’

His heart aches in his chest, wants nothing more than to carry on kissing him until the sun has set properly and the stars have blanketed the indigo above. ‘You ever regret it?’ And he doesn’t need to elaborate, because Cas knows. Here, he always knows.

‘Yes,’ Cas says softly, ‘and no.’ 

Dean catches those eyes, his heart stutters in a way it hasn’t in months. ‘Why not?’ He can’t help the accusatory tone in his voice.

‘You know why not.’ And he does. The kid. Their kid. The number of times he’d done the same for Sam… ‘I wish we had more time together. Above all other things, that is what I regret the most.’

‘Could’ve had years,’ Dean says and he can’t help the tears that burn. He buries his face into the crook of Cas’ neck, breathes him in through the sobs he tries to suppress. 

‘Nothing lasts forever, Dean.’

He opens his eyes, disoriented, face and pillows damp with tears. The room he’s kitted out for himself in the back of the bar slowly comes back into view through the hazy grey light of dawn. He takes a breath, and then another, scrubs a hand across his face. His cell tells him it’s just gone 4 but there’s no point trying to rout his way back to sleep.

The dream will haunt him the rest of the day, as will the phantom feel of Cas’ lips against his. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, I know nothing about how much a bar like this would cost to buy. I took a punt. Secondly, my knowledge of woodworking comes from watching woodturning videos on youtube and a few basics from DT back in high school. Thirdly, I'm British so my knowledge of American georgraphy is really only limited to google maps. Please be gentle and suspend your disbelief.


	3. Chapter 3

_And it's done, now it's curtains, the blood lost, it's the cost, it fucking hurts_   
_But it's working and even if you ask me to stop it's too late_   
_Because I've already decided that faith is not a distaste, it's pure hate_   
_And it pulsates and it works its way around my brain._

When the call comes in, he doesn’t hear it at first, too preoccupied installing a shelving unit on the back wall. The stereo is up loud so he can hear Freddie’s vocals over his hammer. He climbs down the stepladder and picks up his cell from its place on the felt of the new pool table. There’s a missed call and two unread messages.

Claire  
 _You about old man?  
_ _Call me._

His heart gives an odd lurch, leaping up to his throat before plummeting down into his stomach acid. 'Damnit, Cas. Why did we have to wind up adopting your vessel's kid?' He huffs, unlocks the cell and mutters, ‘ _Old man_.’ 

He hears Cas respond, an echo of what once might have been said. ‘She _is_ an adult now, Dean.’ His eyes trail over to the corner of the room, a table beneath a spotlight that’s not quite been fitted into the ceiling yet. He pictures Cas sitting there, still wearing that damn trench coat, eyes soft as he listens to Dean’s indignation. It’d be a gaze that Dean would feel right down to the base of his spine, the kind of look he’d pretend he hadn’t seen. Fond, loaded, filled to the brim with unhidden adoration. 

‘Still a kid.’

His thumb hovers over the call button. He could ignore her. Wallow in the wave of memories of a little girl with the same blue eyes, glowing full of grace, her hands gently cradling her father’s face as he signed over his life to being chained to a comet. 

‘Call her,’ phantom-Cas tells him, plants his feet firmly on the floorboards and stands. ‘She’ll make you feel better.’

‘You call her,’ he mutters, a half-assed retort even by his standards. He hits call before he can talk himself out of it.

Claire picks up on the second ring with a brash, ‘Oh so your thumbs aren’t broken then? You’ve not gone senial and forgotten how to work a cell?’ There’s no real bite behind her bark, but her swift animosity yanks the proverbial carpet from under his feet and it feels like the last four months never happened.

‘Who is this, again?’ he asks, trying to suppress a genuine smile. ‘Was under the impression my teenage kid wanted help but instead I’ve got an irate millennial abusing me.’

There’s a huff down the line. ‘Dean,’ she says, and it’s moments like this where he can hear the Cas in her. But rather than make his chest ache, it makes him grin harder. ‘I’m twenty three.’

‘Bullshit,’ he says before he can stop himself. 

Her laugh makes the line crackle around it. ‘Afraid so, old man. Funny thing about time that, you just keep getting older.’

‘Jesus,’ he mutters. 

‘Yeah, well, now that I’ve got hold of you, you better start responding to Jody or you might need to rethink that whole killing capital-g God thing. She’s pissed. Whenever your name gets mentioned she brings out the Mom Scowl.’

Guilt shuffles through his system. The part of him that sounds like Cas says, ‘She’s right you know.’ And he does. He really does. Jody’s gone to the mat swinging for them before. The least he owes her is a text to let her know he’s still carrying on carrying on. ‘Okay, okay. Consider me suitably chastised. Now, what do you need help with?’

‘You know how to take out a Lamia?’

A wry smile plays on his lips, of a phone call with Bobby and a tiny kitchenette slowly getting ripped apart. ‘Two ways,’ he says, perching on the edge of the pool table. ‘Silver knife that’s been blessed by a priest, or you gotta douse it in rosemary and set the bastard on fire.’

‘See, I figured you’d know, on account of you being ancient.’

‘You done with the old jokes yet?’

‘Almost,’ she says, and he can picture her face, the smile that only plays subtly on her lips but sets her eyes ablaze. 

‘Good. Or I’m gonna have to start asking you about your love life and neither of us wants that.’

‘Hey, me and Kaia are solid, thank you very much.’ 

Something fiercely protective warms him, spreads from his chest down to his fingertips. ‘I’m glad, kid.’

‘You are?’ and her voice changes slightly, as if she were surprised by his easy acceptance. 

‘I mean I’m not about to go sticking rainbow flags on my car or anything, but god knows you deserve some happiness, Claire.’

She’s quiet for a little while and there’s several times he expects her to say something. ‘You think,’ and she pauses, wrestling with how to word a question she’s not even sure she should ask. ‘Do you think he’d be glad?’

Dean doesn’t need to ask who _he_ is. He knows. (He always knows.) ‘Claire, you wouldn’t be able to stop him.’ And it’s weird, because he finds talking to her about Cas doesn’t hurt as much as it does with other people. ‘He’d be the one with the flags on his car. He’d probably steal my credit card and order himself some ugly trench coat that was just striped rainbow pattern like he was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dream Coat. He’d probably research all the different Pride events in South Dakota and bug you to go with him. He’d always be glad, so long as you were happy.’

‘Thanks,’ she breathes down the phone. Her voice is thick. He knows tears when he hears them.

‘You’re welcome. Anytime kid. I mean it.’ And he’s surprised to find that he does.

She kills the call and Dean looks over at the shelves he’d been installing, thinking. Before he can stop himself, he’s opening his laptop and ordering a giant rainbow flag to hang in the bar window and a stupid ass bumper sticker proclaiming, ‘Proud Parent’ with a rainbow either side.

It’s only two hours later, when he gets another text through with a ‘thanks’ and several kissy face emojis, that a leaden weight drops onto his chest. The pain comes so swiftly, so unexpectedly, that he launches his cell across the room so that the screen shatters against the wall. 

But even through the cracks, he can still make out the stupid yellow circle faces.

~~~

Fall appears abruptly, bringing with it frosty mornings and heavy blankets of fog each dawn. The chill doesn’t slow him. If anything, he picks up his pace with the repairs, desperate to warm his blood with hard labour. He hasn’t touched the wood for the bartop since its arrival a few months previous, but the rest of the place is down to finishing touches now and he’s starting to run out of excuses to put it off.

He stands in his workshop, staring down the piece of wood like he might’ve once done a demon. He picks up a chisel, wielding it like an angel blade, and strides forwards.

He works for hours, chipping away the nodules of old branches before starting on it with an industrial sander. He breaks only for lunch and a cup of strong coffee. While he’s fixing his plate he fires off a text to Sam, just to tell him he’s a bitch, and breathes a little easier when he just gets a one word response:

_Jerk._

~~~

They’re barricaded in the dungeon and whatever it is riding Billie’s skin pounds a fist against the door, shaking dust from the ceiling.

Dean watches as though an outsider, glad this time he doesn’t have to stand in his own skin, weep those same tears and watch a literal angel cry as he’s torn away from the man that he loves.

It’s a tableaux of tragedy but he feels divorced from it, just slumps onto the table behind him and watches the inevitable unfold. 

The him in the middle of the room is clinging to the front of Cas’ trench coat, shouting, ‘Damnit Cas, we can fight this.’

‘You fought for this whole world,’ dream-Cas is saying through tears. ‘But you can’t fight for me.’

‘You poor sap,’ he says to himself. ‘He always leaves you. He never stays.’

And though the dream-Dean continues replaying the worst moment of his life, the dream-Cas turns to his right, looking over at him.

‘Leaving you was never what I wanted,’ he says.

‘Still did it.’

Hurt passes behind those baby blues but Dean doesn’t feel triumphant. If anything, it makes him feel even more hollow. And then that hurt is gone, replaced with a quiet fury that blurs the memory, makes it look like he’s watching on an old TV.

‘Do you think if I had a choice that I wouldn’t be here already?’ Dean rarely sees Cas this angry. ‘Do you think if I had any power over this situation that I wouldn’t already be curled around you in your bed?’

Shame floods him. ‘Cas -’

‘I would give anything to be with you.’ The memory has faded out completely, around them is a stretch of grey fog. Somehow, Dean is still sitting against the table in the dungeon of the bunker.

‘I would tear my grace from my body if it would help. I would happily fall more completely than I ever have in my entire existence if it meant I could spend even another second within your presence.’

In his rage, Cas has started crying again. Dean wipes away his own tears before even noticing they’ve started falling. 

‘Why?’

Cas falters. In the fog around them, lightning begins to spark. A hundred of Dean’s own face flitters before him. In each one he’s smiling. The kind of smile that he’s forgotten how to put upon his face. The sort that crinkles the corners of his eyes, makes his cheeks hurt. In a few he has a bloody lip, or a bruised face. In others the smile falters into a scowl, or else turns into a look of pure indignation. 

‘I don’t understand.’

And then a phantom-Dean is placing a hand upon a phantom-Cas’ shoulder, squaring the other hand in front of him and saying with firm sincerity, ‘Don’t ever change.’

‘I lived for millenia, Dean. And in all that time, I was pushed and pulled, beaten and tortured into the perfect weapon, the perfect soldier.’ He steps forwards, reaches out a hand and places it heavily upon his shoulder, mirroring their ghostly selves. ‘But you only ever wanted me to be me. You accepted me as I was, crack in my chassis and all. In spite of betrayal, in spite of how many times these hands bruised you, you still carved a place for me into your heart, into your family. I was more accepted by you than any God or angel. Your capacity for forgiveness, for love, is astonishing. You only ever wanted me to be me.’

‘Are you the part of my brain that believes I deserve happiness?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Cas tells him. ‘I’m not really sure what I am.’

‘I miss you.’

‘The feeling’s mutual.’ Cas gives him a sad smile. ‘One foot in front of the other. One day at a time.’

‘I’m trying.’ He sounds pathetic. He sounds like a child. He just wishes there wasn’t such a crushing weight on him any longer.

‘I know you are. And I am so proud of you.’ He squeezes Dean’s shoulder, the first place he ever touched him. The last. 

And though it’s futile. Though it’s just a dream, he reaches up, brushes his fingertips to Cas’ jaw. His stubble is rough to the touch, and damp with tears. ‘I wish you’d keep your pride, and just come home.’


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter deals with some suicidal ideation. It gets ugly. Please be warned and be kind to yourselves.  
> But I promise 100% that this is the lowest point. It's up from here.

_I'm the one with the ghosts in my bed,_   
_but they only come alive at night._   
_Stuck in my sheets an accustomed coffin,_   
_I swear that I'll be fine,_   
_I'll be fine in the daylight._   
_If I change and I start to fade,_   
_And all the green in my eyes desaturate,_   
_it's my head not my heart that's strayed._   
_I'm sorry I keep pushing you away._

_You're the one at the foot of my bed trying to keep me alive at night._

He’s back working on the bar top, it just needs its finishing touches now. He’d salt washed it, and inlaid both silver and iron at strategic points. Old habits and all that.

But today he’s got a fine tipped chisel and is working sigils into the underside. It’s tedious work and causes his hands to cramp in strange places. Every few minutes he stops to check the print-out from Rowena’s spell books. Sam had assured him that any part of the scroll of sigils would need just a drop of blood and it would activate the magic and generate a powerful shield charm.

For good luck, he adds a devil’s trap each end and, on a whim, starts carving some of the Enochian he’d once seen on the film of an x-ray. The sun is setting by the time he finishes, bleeding across the sky like ink in water. His fingertips trail along the Enochian, his heart pounding against his ribs.

He looks down at his chest, like it would be possible to see beneath his skin and know. ‘Never really had cause to ask,’ he mutters to himself. ‘And no point in asking now because you’re just a part of my brain.’ Even so, his hand comes to his chest and he presses against his sternum wondering if he could possibly feel anything there.

‘Jack would tell me. Could always head to the radiology department to check too.’ He looks around the workshop. It’s empty, save for himself; the only sound his breathing and the gentle ticking of machinery cooling down. He can’t even imagine Cas stood in this place. Maybe that’s why he tries to avoid it. Can’t spend enough time here. ‘Think I’d rather not know for sure.’

He wipes his hands on a rag and walks back to the main building, feeling more rattled than he has in weeks. It’s been four months since he’s drunk anything stronger than beer because he had made a promise and had tried so very hard to keep it. But now he’s pulling a bottle of whiskey off the shelf on the back wall, straight out of his first order of stock, and cracking the metal seal.

He knocks back a generous amount without pause, relishing the burn as it hits his empty stomach. He keeps going, drinking straight from the bottle like a heathen, chasing the numbness it brings. His fingers tingle, it spreads to his spine and down to his toes. He drinks, and he keeps drinking. 

Halfway down the bottle, the stereo is flicked on and he sings along loudly, badly, ‘til his throat is raw and the room starts to blur slightly at the edges. He keeps drinking.

Only dregs in the bottom of the bottle now. He staggers. His head snaps up as the music switches to Zepp. He stills. Feet are rooted to the floor. Paralysed. Robert Plant’s voice tears through his core. Not this song. Not this song. _notthissong_.

Chest tight. Can’t breathe. Can’t get enough air in his lungs.

Not this song.

He’s on the floor. No recollection of landing. Just a dull ache in his knees. ‘Stop,’ he screams to the empty room. Can’t remember how to turn off the stereo. 

_My love is strong, with you there is no wrong, together we shall go until we die._

Unbidden, a memory of his room in the bunker, holding out a cassette tape, their fingers barely touching. ‘It’s a gift. You keep those.’

He covers his ears with shaking hands. Shakes his head like a dog trying to get water from its ears. Keeps repeating the same words over and over and over and over and over and over. 

His tears choke him. He slams a fist into the reclaimed hardwood floor, again, and again, until his knuckles split and begin to bleed. 

Another memory of praying behind a shack in the middle of nowhere, begging a God that didn’t care to return his angel to him. The only one that ever listened to his prayers wrapped in a shroud in a cabin on a water’s edge. 

He crawls across the floor, body shaking, pulls out another bottle of whiskey and sips from that. He can barely swallow. The room spins. He drinks until he vomits. He carries on drinking. 

Dawn approaches on lilac wings, misty and cool.

He’s sat on a bench in the yard, nursing a half full bottle in one hand and his handgun in the other. He’d finally stopped crying an hour ago - no more tears left in him - but his body still trembles with sobs; his breath ragged, hiccupping. 

He’s stared down the barrel of a gun more times than he cares to think about. It’d be easy. Too easy. Oblivion sounds like bliss right now. He presses the muzzle to his temple, moves it to beneath his chin. 

Who’d’ve thought this was how Dean Winchester would go? His own bullet. His own gun. Trigger pulled by his own hand. If the angels and the demons could see him now. 

Cas’ face is stricken when he swims across Dean’s vision. Oh look, there’s more tears, he thinks, as they slip from his eyes. 

‘Can’t do it, Cas,’ he mutters, looking away from those blues. ‘Can’t keep doing this.’

Cas’ hands cover his own, slowly force the gun from his head. ‘You promised.’ 

‘I’m breaking it.’ He takes another swig of whiskey and his stomach turns. He ignores it.

He avoids Cas’ gaze; he’s not really there after all, so why is it so hard to do? That was the whole point of this pity party to begin with. Throw himself to Billie’s mercy and hope more than anything that she keeps her word and sends him to the Empty alongside Cas.

‘Look at me,’ he says. An order. Dean doesn’t. ‘Please?’ Cas’ hand is on his cheek, guides Dean’s gaze up to meet his. 

Gone are the days when they would look at one another for what felt like hours. Dean can barely stand a few seconds right now. Just squeezes his eyes tight, shedding more tears.

Cas’ thumbs swipe them away, fingers curled into the short hairs behind Dean’s ears. ‘Try and sleep now,’ Cas says softly. 

Dean tries to shake his head, knows sleep is impossible with all his worst hits stuck on repeat, but Cas presses his lips to Dean’s forehead, the world tips sideways, grows dark.

He wakes the next day, mouth foul, throat raw, sheets drenched in sweat. His knuckles are bruised, bloody, swollen. His whole body aches, shakes.

He glances around his room frowning. He’d been curled up in bed in nothing but an old black tee and a pair of boxer briefs. He has no recollection of how he got here. Last he remembers, he was out in the yard with…

He pats under his pillow. No gun.

He lurches from his bed, ignoring the hangover that wants to empty his stomach acid into the nearest toilet. He reaches the spot he remembers being the night before, where he’d contemplated swallowing a bullet before Cas had stopped him. 

His gun is there, ivory grips gleaming prettily in the late afternoon sun. 

The clip has been ejected, and a single round sits atop it.

‘Cas?’


	5. Chapter 5

_ I don't really wanna know what's good for me.  
God's dead, I said 'baby that's alright with me' _

He’s jittery for the next week. Every slight sound has him on high alert. He doesn’t just keep a loaded gun under his pillow any longer. He adds an angel blade and a silver knife too, but stops short of salting the doorways. He doesn’t imagine any more conversations with Cas and he doesn’t dream of him either.

But still, he’s unsettled.

He still hasn’t installed the bar, can’t quite face looking at it yet, but that doesn’t stop four rowdy assholes shoving open the door one Friday night whilst Dean is hanging license plates on the wall.

He slowly lowers the drill, turning to look at them. One’s got an absurd man-bun and a hipster beard. The guy to his left is heavy-set, arms striped with tattoos. One’s tall - almost as tall as Sam - and the other is as skinny as a rake. ‘We’re not open,’ he says wearily. 

The four guys all share a look and then the tallest one barks a laugh. ‘Aw, c’mon man, we just want some beer.’

Instinct keeps him in range of the power tools. Years of his father drilling caution into him stops him from exposing his back to them. They could just be passing through but…

‘Cristo,’ he says, and their eyes all flood black.

Their demeanour changes instantly. Man-bun lunges forwards and gets a devil’s trap bullet in the gut for the trouble. Tattoos raises a hand and Dean goes flying into the wall, head bouncing off the metal license plates, gun skidding across the floor out of reach. Stars dance in his vision. He rolls onto all fours, using the momentum to swing his angel blade in a great arc to the guy baring down on him.

Skinny seems to suck his stomach in even more, keeping out of reach of the knife-tip. One’s on his back, teeth sinking sharp into his shoulder. He switches the blade to his other hand and twists in backwards, up into the gut of whoever it is biting him. He hears the tell-tale crackle as the demon dies, followed by a thud as the body hits the floor.

Skinny throws a punch which lands and splits his lip. Dean grapples with him, tries to kick the demon’s legs out from under him but gets wrestled to the ground. 

He hears the safety click on his own gun and feels the muzzle pressed to the base of his skull. He stills, putting his hands up in surrender, the angel blade dropping to the floor. One of them hucks a great gob of bloody spit beside it. 

Over to his right, Man-bun is pounding against thin-air. Skinny dabs a sleeve to the cut above his brow.

‘Man, I thought you were supposed to be some sort of legend,’ the guy with the gun - Tall - says. ‘ _ You’re _ supposed to be the guy that started the apocalypse? The one that fucked the King of Hell and killed God?’

Dean huffs a laugh. ‘I’m also pretty tight with your current boss.’

Tall takes the gun from his head, but twines fingers into his hair and pulls his head back awkwardly to stare down at him. ‘Rowena? Her days are numbered. She’s a self-obsessed bitch.’

Dean shrugs. Well, tries to shrug, but the angle he’s held at makes it difficult. ‘That’s a hell of a lot longer than you’ve got left.’

Tall laughs that barking laugh again and smacks the butt of Dean’s own gun into the back of his head. He hisses through the pain. ‘You’re just a mouthy bastard who’s survived this long out of sheer dumb luck.’

‘And here was me thinking it was down to my perky nipples.’ That earns him another smack of the gun. If he keeps this up, he’s going to have a serious concussion.

‘Funny. Real funny man, aren’t you?’ Tall gets right down close, his breath cloying on the shell of Dean’s ear. ‘But there’s no Castiel around to drag your ass outta the pit this time, is there? Everyone knows that the cost of killing God came at the price of losing that angel on your shoulder.’ Dean’s heart stutters, nausea ricocheting up his throat. ‘Tell me,’ the demon whispers, ‘was it worth it?’

He squeezes his eyes shut, blocks out Skinny’s delighted laugh, and throws his head backwards into Tall guy’s nose. He hears it break with a sickening crunch and then he’s rolling to his left, snatching up his gun as he goes.

Skinny tries to follow him whilst Tall swipes the blood from his nose, but he can’t move more than a step forwards. He keeps trying, halted by an invisible barrier.

His head throbs, his brain bruising against his skull. He watches the demons struggle in the middle of the room, held by nothing at all, and feels detached from the whole thing. Lights are on but no one’s home. ‘You think I’d build a bar,’ he says, walking to the back wall and cracking a bottle of beer, ‘and not cover the damn place in devil’s traps? And you’re calling  _ me _ the dumb one?’ A mirthless laugh. ‘Amatures.’ 

He pulls his cell from his back pocket and brings up his message thread with Rowena. He’s not even sure she’s even contactable in this way, but all the same he fires off a hastily typed:  _ Got some of your trash here. Wanna pick it up? _

He heads out back before returning with iron chains and duct tape. He covers their mouths with the tape because he can’t be bothered listening to the shit pouring out of them, and chains them each to a chair. ‘Because,’ he says to them, ‘I’m not letting you bitches smoke out on the Queen.’ He pats Tall on the side of the face and gives him a shit-eating grin, then turns back to his project. ‘Can’t just leave a man in peace.’ He picks up the drill, and goes back to hanging license plates.

~~~

‘You know, the spellwork you’ve got in that workshop of yours looks mighty familiar.’ Rowena appears in a resplendent red gown, glass of claret in hand and leaning back in a winged armchair near the front of the bar. ‘If you’d had the forethought to install it properly, it probably would’ve come in handy and saved that pretty face of yours.’

Dean can’t help it, he smiles at the sight of her. ‘It’s good to see you,’ he tells her.

‘Of course it is.’ She looks around the bar. ‘No Samuel?’

‘Not yet. I- I still don’t think I can face him.’ He’s not sure why he tells her that. It’s almost like she’s entrapped him in a spell so he can only speak the truth.

She gives him a look of pity; hates her for it, loves her for it. ‘No, I don’t expect you can.’ She stands and glides towards him, reaches up and brushes a hand against the side of his face. Dean’s not sure if he’s ever been this close with Rowena, but in spite of her being a demon, he leans into her touch. ‘But you will.’

Her words are simple, yet fortify him with a certainty he’s not had for a long time. ‘Thanks for stopping by,’ he says. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got anything for this concussion, have you?’

‘Afraid not.’ She pats his cheek softly. ‘I’m not really here.’

Dean frowns, looks around the room. ‘But-’

‘I’m not able to leave Hell.’

‘Rowena, I’m sorry -’

‘Psssh. Don’t be. I’m the one that locked the gates. Fergus wouldn’t approve, and there are plenty of back doors I’m yet to find, but I felt it was time.’ She gives an exaggerated shrug of her shoulders, her curls bouncing like flickering flames. ‘God’s off the board, the Darkness too. Heaven only has a handful of angels left to keep it running and besides, I’m rather fond of you Winchesters -  _ not  _ that you’ll hear me admit that outside your pretty little head.’ She gives him another pat on the cheek. ‘And you’ve got quite enough bilge skulking through the shadows without this lot getting their grubby little hands involved.’

It seems strange to think they had once been at such odds with her, that once upon a time they were more likely to have emptied a clip of witch killing bullets into her than hug her. But Dean reaches forwards and wraps her in his arms. ‘Thank you.’ 

Her body shakes with her laughter. ‘You are sweet. Keep this up and I might change my mind which of you boys I prefer.’ 

There’s a puff of purple smoke, Rowena disappears with a wicked grin, and Dean jerks awake, sitting against the wall of license plates. The demons have disappeared, including the body of the one Dean had stabbed. In their place is a business card. He clambers to his feet and picks it up.

On the front, in embossed gold cursive is  _ Rowena McCleod, QoH _ and on the back, scratched in black ink is,  _ Anytime. Aunty Ro xox _

He fishes his cell from his back pocket. His fingers tremble as he fumbles to unlock it and navigate to Sam.  _ Go on then _ , he types. 

With a deep breath, he hits send.


	6. Chapter 6

_Please put the doctor on the phone 'cause I'm not making any sense._   
_Blame everyone but me for this mess_   
_And my back has been breaking from this heavy heart._   
_We never seemed so far._

Months of hard labour and several fraudulent cheques later, his roadhouse is finally finished. There’s still a couple weeks before he officially opens on New Years, but in a few hours his first guests will’ve arrived.

The bar gleams; birch wood and lightning burns run over with a faint blue resin and varnished until you could find your reflection in the surface. It won’t stay that way for long, he knows, but he’d poured a lot of time and effort into that single stretch of wood. There’s mood lighting illuminating the shelves of liquor on the wall behind it, classier than the usual roadhouse, and amongst them all are various knicknacks he’d squirrelled away in Baby’s trunk over the years.

On the opposite wall is a collage of licence plates, the one directly in the center reads  _ KAZ 2Y5 _ but there’s one - a Connecticut plate - with a slight dent in the metal. Only Dean knows that that ding is in the same shape as his skull. 

In the front right window is a large rainbow flag, and beneath it the neon sign to announce if they’re open or not. 

Through the back is an office, files and paperwork littered across a repurposed desk. There’s a locked cupboard to the right, hiding a currently empty evidence board, red string and various white board markers. There’s a rosary hanging over a glass casing. Inside sits a bottle labelled, ‘Holy Water’, and red caps instruct you to ‘BREAK GLASS IN CASE OF DEMONS’. He’d found it for a dollar at a thrift store a few years back, had meant to give it to Cas as a gag gift for Christmas one year but there had never been an opportunity. Rowena’s business card is perched against it.

Up a flight of stairs leads to the living quarters. Here, Dean has had much less desire to decorate. It’s more function than anything else and he wonders if that’s because his heart’s not truly in it, or if it’s just too painful to imagine decorating a place he so desperately wishes he could fill with Cas. The one thing he does do up here however is locate a red check bedspread and a moose plush to sit on the pillows for the spare room. 

Dean’s keyed up with nervous energy, pacing behind the bar and cleaning stray specks of dust from any and every surface. He checks his watch, knows they’ll be here within the hour and figures it’s about time to do something he’s held off for the last six months.

Out in the yard, he swings round to the lean-to. He’d covered Baby up the first week he’d arrived here, hadn’t even bothered fixing her up since the showdown with Chuck. Her hood is still dinged up in several places, and there’s a great stretch of paintwork that got blasted away when Chuck had been thrown against her. In spite of the tarp, she’s still coated in a fine film of dust.

He doesn’t have any time for fixes - it’ll be the next project to focus on - but he does have time to clean her up a bit. He fills a bucket with warm soapy water and gets to work, lathering her paintwork, washing away the remnants of the road he’d fled down from that waterfront. 

He’s hosing her down when there’s a rumble of an engine as a familiar car pulls into the yard. Nerves swoop through his stomach, his heart aches a little in his chest. He’s thankful they left the Continental at the bunker and brought one of the others. He’s not sure he could cope seeing the beige monstrosity. 

Sam’s legs unfurl from the driver’s side first, and then all six and a half feet of his baby brother are following. Since Dean had seen him last Sam’s hair had grown and a dusting of stubble has covered his cheeks. There’s something else about him that’s different that Dean can’t quite place at first. And then he catches sight of Eileen extracting herself from the passenger side, Sam’s eyes lingering on her before flicking over to meet Dean’s gaze. So, that’s what it was: Sammy was in love.

Before he can shout out a greeting, Jack has flung his arms around Dean and is holding him so tightly it makes his ribs ache. He laughs, feels freer than he has done in six months. ‘I missed you too, kid.’ He holds him out, takes a look at him. He’s not sure why he expects him to have changed, he looks exactly as he had when he’d taken out Chuck. ‘Sam’s going to help me apply for college!’ he tells Dean, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

‘Jack, could you give me a hand with the bags?’ Eileen calls and then Jack is bounding away like an excitable puppy. Eileen catches Dean’s eye over Jack’s head and gives him a wink. 

‘Hey,’ Sam says as he reaches Dean.

There’s a war going on in his brain. Part of him wants to grab Sam into a bear hug and never let him go again. Another part just wants to run inside, lock the doors, grab a bottle of whiskey and shut the world out. He’s not ready, he’s not ready, he’s - 

_Deep breaths, Dean_ , the Cas in his head says. So he inhales. It shudders into his lungs like the first breath on a frigid morning, ghosts out hot and opaque.

Then he’s stepped forwards and he’s hugging Sam close to him, like a lifeline. And maybe he is.

Sam’s put weight on. Dean can feel it under the fabric of his plaid. A little more muscle, maybe a little pudge like Dean’s got around his middle, or perhaps a bit of both. Regardless, it speaks of health, of a decent diet and a little more of a relaxed pace to his life. Dean’ll have to find a way to thank Eileen.

They don’t speak - Dean’s still not sure if he can yet - just cling to one another tightly. He’s missed this. Missed Sam more than he even realised. And he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was the right call.

‘Dean,’ Eileen says, perhaps a little louder than usual. Sam takes a step back, glances down to her, a soft look in his eyes.

‘Hey, you,’ he says, quickly wracking his brains for the corresponding signs and fumbling over his fingers.

‘You just spelled out hayfever,’ she tells him.

‘I’m - uh - out of practice,’ he says, glancing to Sam for help. Sam helpfully keeps his hands tucked in his pockets. The bitch.

She steps forwards, links her arm through his to turn towards the bar. ‘Don’t worry,’ she says. ‘I’ll get you brushed up in no time.’

~~~

Eileen, it transpires, can bake one hell of a pie. She’d brought a cooler with both pumpkin and pecan, and Dean wastes no time tucking straight into an overly large piece of both. Sam throws him a bitch face as he starts shovelling forkfuls into his mouth, and it’s such a familiar scene, as they sit around relaxing in the living room that it feels like several years were just added to his life. 

He signs his thanks to Eileen ( _ that _ one he remembers) then turns to Sam. ‘You guys alright if I head out for a bit?’

If Sam is curious, he doesn’t let it play across his face. ‘Sure.’

‘Try not to burn the place down, yeah? Or I won’t be held responsible for my actions.’ Then he leans over, tapping Jack on his shoulder. ‘Wanna come with?’

Something unreadable passes behind the kid’s eyes. Once, Dean might’ve been able to parse out what it meant, but six months away from him and his newly grown soul had taken that ability from him. All the same, Jack nods and follows Dean down the flight of stairs, out into the yard.

He heads towards Baby, but Dean catches his arm, steering him towards the pick-up he’d been using. ‘Baby’s no use where we’re going.’

‘Why?’ Jack asks, and Dean is strongly reminded of a six-year-old Sam wanting to know things he should never have to deal with.

‘Because,’ says Dean, ‘we’re going to choose a tree.’

‘A tree?’

He climbs into the pick-up and Jack follows. ‘Yup. To decorate.’

Jack’s entire demeanour changes. ‘A Christmas tree?’

Dean looks at the excitable puppy and can’t fight the grin that it puts on his own face. He wishes Cas were here to see it. ‘Yeah, kid. Can’t have Christmas without a tree, and there’s a farm near-by where you can chop your own.’

The drive takes them twenty minutes max, and Jack buzzes the entire time. It’s like sitting in the car with an overly active bee. Dean gives the land owner a few bills and they head out through the trees in look of the perfect one, hatchet tucked into his belt alongside his gun. (Old habits.)

After about ten minutes, Jack stops and calls Dean over. His choice is a little on the runty side, and it has a few branches bent out of shape, but Dean knows without a shadow of a doubt that this is the perfect one. ‘Sure?’ he asks and Jack gives him a fervent nod. 

Dean’s all ready to start swinging the hatchet when Jack crouches down and lifts the entire tree out of the ground, roots and all, like he was lifting nothing heavier than a twig.

Momentarily, Dean’s brain seems to freeze. In spite of the fact the child in front of him had taken out literal God, he’d briefly forgotten exactly  _ what _ Jack was. ‘Right,’ Dean says, trying to get back to thinking straight. ‘Angelic super-strength.’

‘This way, we can plant it in the yard after Christmas and then we can decorate it every year.’

His words slip down into Dean’s stomach like a warming shot of good whiskey. It ignites something inside of him that he hadn’t felt in a long,  _ long _ time. “We” and “every” are terms Dean had carefully avoided for half a year, because having people close meant having people he could lose again.  _ But _ , his inner-Cas says,  _ even if they’re not with you, you would still feel it if you lost them _ .

He eases the tree from Jack’s arms, gets showered in a few loose pine needles and hard dirt, but wraps the kid into a tight hug. ‘Of course we can,’ he says fiercely and he feels, rather than sees the smile on Jack’s face. 

‘Dean?’

‘Yeah?’

‘You can let me go now.’

He holds on for a few seconds longer. ‘Yeah yeah, I know. Give your old man a break. If I wanna hug my kid then I’m gonna hug my kid.’

~~~

Whilst they were out, Sam had mixed up some eggnog and mulled wine, and Eileen had started work on a batch of homemade mince pies. The kitchen and adjoining living room now smell of cloves and cinnamon from the moment they come up the stairs. Jack dives straight for the eggnog and gets quelled by a fierce look from Sam. He opts for an orange juice instead. 

They spend the next few hours adding lights and baubles to the tree, regaling the story of the look on the land owner’s face when Jack had strode back to the pick-up carrying the weight of a Christmas tree in his arms. 

_ You’re happy, _ the Cas in his head says. Dean can almost see him out of the corner of his eye, lingering in the archway to the kitchen. Great, just great. Now he’s hallucinating.

He walks to the fridge, extracts a beer, takes a swig. Glancing over his shoulder he sees Eileen teaching Jack how to make paper-chains, whilst Sam watches on, eyes soft, hand trailing up and down Eileen’s spine. An ugly spark of jealousy shoots through him, pricking tears into his eyes. 

Pointedly ignoring the phantom-Cas in the archway, he storms from the kitchen and down the stairs. He’s halfway across the dark yard, out towards the empty adjacent fields, before he realises that he can’t really see where he’s going. There’s hardly any light from the sliver of moon and the stars are obscured by cloud.

‘Damnit!’ he screams into the ether, launching his just-opened beer into the field like he was hurling a grenade. ‘Fuck!’

There’s a suffocating feeling around him. Everything is almost perfect. Everything is almost how it used to be just without the constant threat of an apocalypse or twelve hanging over their heads like a sword of Damocles. Everything was almost perfect.

The phantom-Cas, the hallucination -  _ whatever _ it was - had followed him outside and Dean just wants to keep screaming. It’s not a ghost because angels can’t  _ be _ ghosts; besides it glows, ethereal, blue-white, like grace. He was cracking up. It had finally happened.

‘You wanna keep shouting, or d’you want another beer?’

He turns towards Sam’s voice, shoulders slumping. ‘I can’t do this right now, Sammy.’

Sam falters, eyes him up and down, trying to figure out a game plan for the ensuing conversation; weighing up whether or not he needs to put on the kiddie gloves or start hurling abuse at him.

‘I don’t wanna fight, Dean.’ Kiddie gloves then. 

‘Yeah well, maybe I do.’ He kicks out into the wild grass and scatters dirt. Sam raises his arms up in faux-surrender and drops them down heavily. 

‘Look, I’ll just go back upstairs and you can process whatever it is you need to process.’

‘Wait.’ The word is out before he’s even thought about it. ‘Please?’

‘Hey, I’m being guided by you here.’ Sam takes a tentative step forward. ‘A lot of shit went down back there.’

‘I think I’m going crazy.’ Okay, that was  _ definitely _ not what he had intended to say. 

Sam raises an eyebrow.

‘There’s - uh -’ his voice falters and he glances to his left. ‘You can’t see Cas standing over there by any chance?’

Sam, bless him, looks. ‘No, Dean. I don’t.’

‘Yeah, thought not.’

‘Are - Can you?’ There’s a note of concern in his tone now, one that he’s trying desperately to keep from his voice for Dean’s sake. He forgets though, Dean knows him better than probably anyone else.

‘Sort of? I don’t know man.’ He scrubs his hand down his face. Phantom-Cas disappears, his sad smile burnt into Dean’s retina. ‘Like I said, I’ve finally cracked.’

Sam still stares at the place Dean had indicated. ‘I mean, maybe you haven’t?’

Dean lets rip a mirthless laugh. ‘What part of seeing the not-ghost of our dead best friend did you not understand?’

Finally, the pity look comes out in full force. Dean wants to hit him. ‘It wouldn’t exactly be the first time you’ve seen Cas when you thought he was dead.’

Dean doesn’t respond for a little while. Because Sam was right (he’s _ always _ freaking right), he  _ had _ seen Cas before when he’d thought he was dead, lost to him in Purgatory. ‘I don’t want him to be dead,’ Dean says quietly. ‘But you weren’t there Sammy. You didn’t see what it was that came for him.’

‘Because you wouldn’t tell me. And I didn’t push it because you were a mess.’ Sam runs his hands through his hair nervously, pushing it from his eyes. ‘Look, you and Cas had your  _ profound bond _ or whatever the heck it was - don’t look at me like that, you did - what if… what  _ if _ it can reach across into the Empty and -’ he falters.

Tears spill from Dean’s eyes, thick and fast, an unstoppable flood bursting through the cracks in the dam. ‘Sammy, if it were that simple, he’d already be here. Don’t you think I’ve been wishing and hoping every God-forsaken day since it happened? I can’t even stop praying to him.’ He hates himself for it; hates himself even more for admitting it out loud. ‘He’s gone somewhere that we can’t bring him back. Doesn’t matter the deals we could make or the magic we could swing, he’s  _ gone _ because he traded his life for Jack’s.’

Sam inhales sharply. ‘You’ve given up on him.’

This time he really does take a swing at Sam but his brother easily sidesteps his advance. ‘Asshole.’

‘Sure,  _ I’m  _ the asshole. I’m not the one that’s wallowing in self-pity rather than try and  _ do _ something about it.’

‘You don’t-’

‘What? I don’t understand?’ Sam’s shouting now too, his voice echoing out over the empty fields as much as Dean’s. ‘The last time it happened, when his wings burnt the ground and we gave him a hunter’s funeral, even then Dean, he still came back.’

‘It’s not the same.’

‘How is it not the same? Both times he went to the Empty, Dean. Jack woke him up last time, why can’t-’

‘I will not risk our kid, Sam!’

His brother’s mouth snaps shut and he nods once. ‘Look, I’m not - of course I don’t mean we should -’ Again, he pushes his hair out of his face. ‘I just hate seeing you like this, man.’

‘Yeah, well, it’s not like I enjoy being like this either.’ He swipes at the wetness on his cheeks and Sam watches him, a crease between his brows. ‘You’ll get wrinkles.’

‘Last time,’ he says, stealing himself for what he’s sure will be Dean’s inevitable explosion, ‘you said usually you go through the motions, keep on keeping on, but that that time it was different.’

‘I remember what I said, Sammy.’

‘What was different then to now?’

‘I made a promise.’ He takes a shuddering breath. ‘I curse it every damn day. Wish I’d never done it. But the son of a bitch made me promise I’d live life.’ He looks over at the roadhouse he had built out of the rubble of his broken heart. ‘So I get up, and I work on this place. I put one foot in front of the other, don’t go looking for a blade to fall on, and I don’t drink anything stronger than beer.’ 

‘Seriously?’ 

‘There’ve been a couple blips.’ He shrugs. ‘Look, I - I talk to him. All the time. I talk to him about choosing this spot because I saw bees flying around the stupid-ass flowers out back. I talk to him whilst I work, make jokes about how it’d be useful to have him around if ever I cut my hands or whatever. I tell him about how I kept Baby’s original license plate in the trunk for the last decade and a half, and why I chose a certain bit of tat for behind the bar. I tell him that Rowena came to me in a dream, and that Claire’s dating Kaia now and doing great. I talk to him every day and I know it makes me sound like a lunatic, but it’s the only way I’ve managed to keep trying.’

At some point, tears had welled up in Sam’s eyes. ‘And now you’re -’

‘-Seeing him. Yeah.’ He throws his own hands into the air, turns away from Sam. ‘Lunatic.’

Sam’s hand lands on his shoulder, firm, a solid weight of reassurance. ‘I don’t think you’re a lunatic, Dean,’ he says gently. ‘I think you’re just grieving someone that you loved.’

It’s no surprise really, that Sam had cottoned on somewhere along the road. In retrospect, he and Cas had hardly been subtle with all those lingering looks and mutual pining. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, he supposes. 

‘Yeah, well,’ he says. ‘It fucking sucks.’

Sam squeezes his shoulder again. ‘Yeah, it really does.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Strap in fellas. It's about to get fun.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A carewarning for some slight noncon kissing in this chapter. It starts with Cas getting his jaw pinched and ends with golden light/section break if you want to skip over it. It only lasts for a couple of sentences. Again, stay safe friends.

_Weep not for roads untraveled_   
_Weep not for sights unseen_   
_May your love never end, and if you need a friend_   
_There's a seat here alongside me._

There’s nothing around him, save for an endless, suffocating expanse of black. He supposes there must be  _ something _ there, considering he’s sat cross legged on what could potentially be a floor, but he might as well be blind for all he can see. ‘Hello?’ Dean calls out. His voice echoes, bounces around the nothing until it’s clamouring back to him ten times louder.

It’s unlike any dream he’s ever had, and an uneasy feeling begins to crawl up his spine. Every anxious thought he’s ever had seems to be waking up in his brain, so that he pushes up to his feet, desperate not to stay still.

So he walks and the infinite black just carries on without changing. 

‘Hmm,’ comes a sickly sweet voice behind him. Dean turns to the voice, his heart ricocheting off his ribs up through his throat and he wants to scream but Alastair just opens his mouth and asks, ‘Now what are  _ you _ doing down here?’

‘You’re dead.’ And he tries, desperately, to cling to the memory of Sam’s eyes inking over as he pulled the demonic smoke right out of Alastair’s meatsuit. 

‘Sure about that, Deano?’ he asks, taking a swaggering step forwards. His eyes flicker to that ugly, milky white and Dean wants to run, wants to vomit, wants to wake up. ‘We used to be so close,’ Alastair says, advancing on him. ‘Let me crawl back inside that sack of yours, Dean. You used to scream so sweetly when we were together in Hell.’

And then Dean’s back bumps up against a wall made from the same nothingness as everything else. Cornered, trapped, with his own piece of Hell come back to torment him. ‘Sam killed you,’ he says, and wishes his voice didn’t sound so unsure. He wishes he didn’t have forty years of memories willing to replay so vividly.

Alastair leans against the wall, pins him there like a lepidopterist with a new butterfly to study. He can smell sulphur as Alastair’s breath ghosts across his face. ‘Just like old times,’ he says, nuzzling down into Dean’s neck.

And then Alastair’s weight is gone as he flies through the air. 

Cas stands in front of him, angry scowl on his face. But he doesn’t look at Dean, just keeps that frown aimed directly at Alastair. ‘So you’re no longer content with just torturing me in my sleep with all of my worst memories?’ he demands. ‘Now you’re actively generating hallucinations to torment me too?’

Alastair stands up, cracks his dislocated jaw back into place and sizes Cas up.

‘Awake again, Castiel.’

‘Of course I am.  _ You _ woke me for this charade.’ He throws a hand in Dean’s direction.

‘Cas?’ he asks, but again, Cas ignores him. 

Alastair looks past Cas towards Dean, and asks, ‘Is he always this exhausting?’

Dean frowns. Understanding inches towards him slowly. He can see what’s really going on somewhere off in the distance, but the road ahead is still foggy. 

‘What are you trying to achieve with this?’ Cas shouts. ‘I thought the whole point of you dragging me here was to force me to sleep for eternity!’

Again, Alastair looks over to Dean. ‘You got there yet, Dean?’ he asks. ‘Or does this face make it too difficult for your brain to figure it out?’ Alastair’s mouth twists, ugly and vicious. ‘Would it help if I were someone a little more recognisable?’ And then he’s morphing, hair growing darker, skin changing colour, clothing becoming form fitting, a smoke-made scythe now held in hand.

The Empty stands in Billie’s skin, just like it did when it came for Cas. He chokes on a scream.

Slowly, Cas turns and looks, really  _ looks _ right at Dean and his eyes grow wide, full of wonder, full of fear. ‘Dean?’

He’s thankful for the apparent wall behind him, because otherwise his knees would’ve buckled. He’s overcome by a strange desire to check his own pulse, idly wonders if he had a heart attack in his sleep and Billie really  _ did _ send him here, but he knows from experience that even if he  _ is _ dead, your soul has a way of retaining the muscle memory of every heartbeat, every shaky breath.

‘Dean, what are you doing here?’ Cas asks, eyes roving hungrily over Dean’s face like he can’t quite get enough of looking at him. He tries to step forward but the blackness around them has wrapped itself around Cas’ feet and is holding him in place. 

‘Now  _ that _ is exactly what I want to know.’ Now that Dean knows what it is in front of him, he can make out the metallic echo coming from The Empty’s words. He hadn’t been able to detect it over Alastair’s sickly sweet drawl, but it’s more obvious behind Billie’s slow voice.

‘I don’t know. I - I don’t even remember dying.’

The Empty surveys him, stalks forward ignoring Cas’ desperate shouts of, ‘Stay away from him!’ as he struggles to free himself.

When it’s right up close to Dean again it leans forwards into his face, disgust etched upon every line of it’s stolen face. ‘You humans really are stupid,’ it says finally. ‘Your so  _ small _ , so _ limited _ .’

‘Liar.’ Cas’ voice is barely a whisper, but it carries through the nothing like a scream. 

The Empty spins towards Cas, a whip sharp snap of a movement, like it can fold the space between them into nothing at all. Dean thinks idly that it probably can. ‘Liar, am I, Castiel?’ It’s right up close to him now, black ooze shifting along its skin until Billie’s form is replaced by a replica of Cas’ own. It tiptoes its fingers up the side of Cas’ face, leaving inky splodges on his skin.

Hatred blazes in Cas’ eyes, and Dean is visited by a brief splinter of a memory: of choking on black smoke, hands slick with blood, and the way Alastair had fled after just one single look at that face - no - those  _ faces _ . Exact memories of his rescue from the Pit are rare, they’re more vague, like watching through a thickly fogged glass, something he supposes he has Cas to thank for. But this rings as clear as a bell, blindingly clear: heavenly wrath sent to save the righteous man. ‘The human soul is infinite, beautiful. If you can’t see that, then you’re the one that’s limited.’

Something ripples through the ether and dread pools low in Dean’s gut. The Empty - still looking like Cas’ double - snaps its fingers and Cas doubles up in pain. Dean tries to cry out but the Empty holds up a hand and silences him. Goddamnit he wishes Cas would stop provoking cosmic entities. 

‘ _ Dean _ ,’ Cas says through tightly gritted teeth. ‘Dean, you need to wake up now.’

Again, he tries to speak. Again, the Empty keeps him voice-less. ‘Nuh-uh!’ it says in a sing-song voice that’s nothing like Cas’. ‘You’re in my domain now,’ and slowly the Empty begins to morph again, the black ooze rippling until a mirror image of Dean stands there with a sycophantic smile stretched across his face. ‘And in my domain, I can do whatever I want.’

The Empty pinches Cas’ jaw painfully, drags his face towards it and plants its mouth upon Cas’. Dean finds it weird, watching something that looks just like him, forcing a kiss upon Cas. It’s a parody of everything they never got to share. 

Cas tries to shrink away from the assault but his body is still frozen, trembling in agony. The Empty licks its way into Cas’ mouth, an ugly violation that has Dean trying to struggle from his position against the wall. But he too, is rooted to the spot. Ink floods into Cas’ mouth, spills down his chin. Finally, Dean’s voice is his own again, and he starts screaming Cas’ name, over and over. The ink trails down Cas’ neck, clambers up over his cheeks, slowly consuming him.

‘ _ Cas _ !’

Dean’s own unhinged face looks back at him, gleeful. ‘Your turn,’ the Empty says, just as a dazzling golden light fills the ether.

~~~

He’s still screaming Cas’ name as he lurches up out of bed. Jack is crouched beside him, eyes still alight, hands still raised towards Dean. Sam and Eileen are standing in the doorway to Dean’s room, sharing the same anxious look. 

Dean can’t find his feet, and he stumbles, staggers, pitches sideways, as Sam rushes forwards and grabs hold. ‘S’okay, I got you, you’re okay,’ he says soothingly, rubbing circles into Dean’s back.

He can’t quite catch his breath. His heart races, rapid, terrified. So real. It was all  _ so real _ .

‘Dean,’ Jack says, and he snaps his head towards the kid whose eyes are still glowing golden. ‘How the hell did you get into the Empty?’

He shakes his head, too scared to open his mouth in case he vomits all over Sam.

‘You shouldn’t be able to get there,’ Jack adds, the gold fading into nothing more than confusion. ‘Human souls aren’t allowed. And,’ his head cocks to the side, ‘you weren’t even dead.’

His knees buckle, and if Sam weren’t holding him upright he would be on the floor. Sam steers him back to his mattress, but keeps a firm hand on his right shoulder. 

‘Dean-’ Jack starts but Sam holds up a hand.

‘Give him a minute.’

He feels like he’s just come out the other side of a particularly rough bout of flu. His whole body aches, feels feverish. His night shirt clings to him, damp with sweat, and his brain feels sluggish. He supposes if he did just dimension hop like the kid is claiming, it can’t have been easy on him. With head in hands, he presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, chasing the white spots that pop into his vision. But they’re quickly followed by his own vicious face consuming Cas into nothing.

A half-baked idea is starting to form in the back of his mind, and he looks over at Jack. ‘You pulled me out of there, right?’ 

‘Yeah, but -’

‘I need you to send me back.’

‘Are you out of your god-damned mind?!’ Sam shouts. 

Dean looks at his brother, sets his jaw. ‘So what? When I’m not looking for a way to get Cas outta there then I don’t care enough but the second I actually figure out what to do, no way? I’m crazy?’

‘You were the one that said it was impossible! That you wouldn’t risk Jack’s life.’

Eileen reappears - Dean hadn’t even noticed her leave - and pushes a glass of water into his hands. ‘Drink,’ she says firmly. He doesn’t try to argue. She places a gentle hand on Sam’s lower arm and once he’s looking at her, she quickly signs something that Dean’s brain can’t quite figure out. 

‘Fine!’ Sam shouts but the effect of his anger is lost somewhat, considering the entire time he’s also signing for Eileen’s benefit. ‘You talk some sense into him then.’ And he’s off out of the room to sulk.

‘Jack, could you give us a minute?’ she asks and the kid nods, following Sam. She crouches down in front of him. ‘I’m going to need you to look at me when you talk, seeing as you’re woefully out of practice with your ASL.’ She’s smiling as she says it.

‘Hay fever, right.’ But he does what she asks, and keeps his head up to face her.

‘He’s worried about you. He’s been worried about you for six months. And I know that you know that already, but that back there? That was really scary.’

‘Yeah well, it wasn’t exactly a picnic my end either.’

She gives him a tight smile, glances towards the doorway then back again. ‘I don’t mind backing you with this plan of yours, but you’ve gotta give me details if I’m going to try and persuade Sam.’

He studies her for half a minute, weighing his options. But there's a blazing look in her eye that Dean finds familiarity in. So it's easy when he nods his head and says, ‘Deal.’


	8. Chapter 8

_Love, it will not betray you,_  
_Dismay or enslave you,_  
_it will set you free._  
_Be more like the man you were made to be._

There’s a silver bowl full of dried herbs, blood, and crushed animal bones waiting for Sam to light a match to start the spell that’ll regenerate Cas’ body. Dean had point-blank refused to allow them to start before Jack put him under. He’d already seen Cas’ lifeless body once and it had been one time too many then.

Carefully, he steps around the sigils that had been freshly painted onto his new hardwood floors, wrinkling his nose in distaste. Much to Dean’s dismay, Sam had insisted they were necessary for the spell to work correctly.  _ Witches _ .

Jack is sitting at the head of three tables they’d pushed together, and Dean jumps onto the middle one. He looks at Sam, takes a deep, grounding breath, then lays down. Jack’s hands come to hover either side of Dean’s head and in a high-pitched whine and a shimmer of gold, the bar dissolves around him.

He’s back on the dock at sunset but this time there’s no Cas. In his place is Jack, who looks around the dreamscape with intrigue. ‘It’s peaceful here.’

Dean doesn’t respond, just pushes himself up out of his fishing chair. Even though it’s nothing but a dream, the sun still feels warm upon his skin. He glances at Jack, takes a deep breath. ‘If this doesn’t work, you tell Sam that I’m okay with it.’

‘But you have to come back,’ Jack says.

‘Trust me, kid, I intend to.’ He pats him heavily on the shoulder. ‘But as your dad, I’m telling you now: if it gets too dicy, and it’d risk your safety to stay too close to here?’ He taps his temple, ‘Then I’m telling you to get out and save yourself.’

‘But -’

‘I’d never forgive myself if I got you killed. Understand?’

Jack looks like he wants to argue but after several seconds the fight drains out of his tense shoulders. ‘Okay.’ 

‘Good kid,’ Dean says, pulling him forwards into a tight embrace. ‘Now. Let’s bring Cas home.’

Jack steps backwards, his eyes start to glow golden and the sunset shimmers with it. And then all the lights go out and Dean is back in that vast expanse of blackness he now knows is the Empty.

He doesn’t start out alone this time. Instead, his mom stands before him in a white nightgown, blood pouring from a gash in her stomach. ‘What are you doing here, Dean?’ she asks. Around him, the stench of smoke and burning flesh begins to intensify. It’s a sight that had haunted him for more than half his life, but for once, the memory of his mother’s first death doesn’t cut quite as deep as it once had. 

Instead, he ignores her, turns away from her and starts walking in the opposite direction.

‘Don’t turn your back on me, boy!’ his father’s voice barks through the darkness. The smell of the fire is replaced with stale whiskey. In spite of himself, he looks over his shoulder, and where Mary had once stood, now there was John, as angry as he had been the night Sam left for Stanford.

It takes a little more fortitude to turn away from his father’s image, but still he does it. ‘Cas?’ he calls into the nothing. ‘C’mon buddy, I’m gonna need you to wake up.’

Chuck’s voice echoes behind him. ‘Ain’t gonna happen, Dean!’

He looks back once more at the Empty now masquerading as God and stifles a bitter laugh. ‘You think Chuck’s gonna do it when my mom and dad didn’t?’ He carries on walking.

‘No,’ it says, and this time its voice is soft, gentle, achingly familiar in a way that guts him. He tries to keep going, but his steps finally falter. ‘I suppose you don’t care worth a damn about God,’ Lisa says.

He won’t look, doesn’t want to be reminded of a person whose life he erovakably ruined. ‘You’re not her,’ is all he says. And with a great effort, he starts walking again. ‘Cas?’

‘You really are hard to please,’ Kevin says, and in his head, Dean sees Sam’s hand burning the life right out of his eyes.

And then his voice changes, morphs and It’s Charlie that adds, ‘I’m almost tempted to change my policy on humans to get my hands on that brain of yours.’ 

Still, he doesn’t turn. ‘All that  _ guilt _ .’ Jo’s voice sounds vicious, vile. 

Ellen’s is just as twisted, bitter. ‘All these people whose deaths you’ve caused.’

‘There’s so much blood on those hands of yours, son,’ Bobby says and Dean finally cracks, turns to look and there the old hunter stands, bullet hole in his skull. 

He shimmers in the black ooze of the place, morphs to Amara and whispers, ‘I could take that  _ all _ away.’

And then, from behind him comes a, ‘Squirrel.’

The Empty’s face snaps up to look and it’s  _ furious _ . Dean turns and sees Crowley stood there, wearing the same suit as the day he died and the same smug smile is playing on his face. ‘Crowley?’ he asks, because he has a wild feeling that this isn’t another of the Empty’s tricks.

‘Good to see you, Dean.’ And he actually shoots a genuine smile his way. 

‘You?’ the Empty screams, its features blurring, twisting grotesquely between Amara and Lucifer. 

‘Me,’ Crowley says, eyes flashing momentarily red. ‘If you want to get to Wings of Desire, Squirrel, I’d get a move on.’

Crimson lightning sparks across the black. ‘You’re going to pay for that, you pathetic little demon!’ the Empty snarls and Dean doesn’t need telling twice. He legs it until the two of them are nothing but specks in the distance. 

The lightning continues to flash, and around him, whispers start to sound. He can’t make out voices, just a sibilant sigh chasing him through the crimson-tinged ether. ‘Cas?’ he shouts again, and his voice echoes the word before a hundred thousand voices begin to repeat the name back at him. 

Just as he comes to the realisation that every angel, every demon, every _ thing _ that had ever had the misfortune of falling into the clutches of the Empty was slowly starting to wake up, the floor gives out underneath him and he’s crashing to the floor of a warehouse. The lights are fluorescent, harsh, ugly, and around him, the concrete is littered with a hundred or more dead bodies.

_ His _ dead body.

In the middle of the room, Cas stands tall above a cowering version of him. His eyes are dead, but tears spill from them all the same. ‘Cas?’

An angel blade is pushed into the chest cavity of the Dean whimpering on the floor and then Cas is turning that lifeless gaze upon Dean and advancing towards him, the copy’s blood slowly dripping to the concrete. 

He gets punched in the face, feels a hairline crack lance through his jaw. Lights pop in his vision and he puts a hand to his throbbing jaw. There was full angelic strength behind that swing. ‘Cas, c’mon buddy, we’ve gone through these motions before.’

Cas continues to beat him, until he’s crouched upon the floor like the previous copy of him. But Dean knows the words he has to say, remembers the script. The warehouse has disappeared behind them. Instead they’re now in a badly-lit crypt and Dean’s bleeding sluggishly into the dust. ‘Cas, we need you,’ he says, and Cas’ hand stills. ‘I need  _ you _ .’ Once again, the angel blade drops from his hands with a clatter. ‘C’mon Cas,’ Dean says through a mouthful of blood. ‘Wake up for me.’

Light returns to those blue eyes, appearing like the break of dawn. Cas drops to his knees in front of Dean, reaching to cradle his face with both hands. ‘How are you here?’ he asks, and Dean feels his face heel from the cuts and bruises. 

He grabs hold of Cas’ wrist, leans against him heavily. ‘Told you, bottom line. I’m not leaving here without you.’

Cas’ breath hitches and then his lips are pressed to Dean’s, warm, soft and solid, taking him completely by surprise. Dean pulls back slightly, rests his forehead to Cas’. ‘As much as I wanna keep doing that. This is supposed to be a rescue.’

As if on cue, the crypt gives a violent shudder, that same crimson lightning cracking the scene at the seams. Cas gets to his feet, pulling Dean up as he goes. ‘What did you do?’

‘Not sure,’ he admits. They’re now mostly back in the crimson-lit black, chunks of the crypt collapsing into nothingness. ‘But I think it has something to do with Crowley.’

‘Crowley?’ Cas asks incredulously.

‘You rang, Feathers?’ and they both spin to the newcomer.

‘You’re awake too?’ Cas asks, astonished. 

Crowley shrugs and beckons them forwards. ‘It’s hard not to be with Moose stomping around the place.’

In an instant, Dean has put himself between Cas and Crowley, unsheathing an angel blade from the back of his jeans. ‘Crowley calls me Squirrel,’ he says, only vaguely registering just how absurd a sentence that truly is. He points the blade towards the Empty and says, ‘What did you do to him?’

‘Concerned for your old flame, Dean? How touching.’

‘Fuck you,’ Dean spits, keeping a firm grip on Cas’ wrist.

‘If you want,’ the Empty says, puppetting Crowley’s face to wink.

Dean suppresses the urge to roll his eyes, instead pushes Cas back a step. 

Jack’s voice breaks through the nothing, a golden shimmer filtering above them, warm and inviting. ‘Dean, you need to hurry.’

The Empty looks up at the golden glow and looks mutinous. ‘That Nephilim is interfering with my sleep  _ again _ !’ it shrieks. The entire expanse of black seems to shake like an earthquake. 

But Dean ignores it, turns around to face Cas and asks, hurried, his heart racing in his chest, ‘Do you trust me?’

‘Of course,’ Cas says.

Dean raises the angel blade to the crook of Cas’ neck. He flinches at the touch of the cool metal but doesn't move away. 

‘What are you doing?’ the Empty screams and it is every voice and none.

He keeps Cas’ gaze and says to the cosmic entity behind him, ‘You told me yourself, you have no dominion over human souls. That we’re small and limited.’ Understanding passes those beautiful blue eyes, and Cas leans into the bite of the blade at his neck. Blood begins welling to the surface. ‘Maybe the reason you never managed to keep Cas all those times before just comes down to that.’

‘You really think he has a soul?’ the Empty asks, and it is an ugly stretch of nothing now, only vaguely human in shape. ‘You’re really willing to risk that?’

Dean reaches up, tangles his fingers into the soft hair at the base of Cas’ skull, rubs his thumb along the underside of his jaw. ‘No,’ Dean says. ‘But it’s his choice.’ He tries to keep his hand as steady as possible, and addresses his next words to Cas, and Cas alone. ‘It’s one hell of a Hail Mary. Might not even work.’

Cas’ hand comes up to rest atop the one holding the angel blade. ‘But it might.’

And it’s just the two of them, the swirling cosmic entity raging around them is easy to ignore, is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Cas twitches Dean’s hand, the blade pierces deeper still, and blue-white grace begins to flood from the wound as quickly as the blood.

Dean drops the blade, plants his hand across the bleeding cut to stem the flow, and watches as Cas lets go of his grace.

The Empty screeches, sounds like unoiled gears scraping together and the entire mass of nothing collapses in around them. There’s another crack of golden lightning, a swooping sensation behind his navel, and then he knows nothing.

~~~

The floor of the bar rushes up to meet him as he slips sideways back into reality. Sam is shouting something unintelligible, whilst Eileen’s hands appear, steadying him. She’s speaking too, but there’s a violent ringing in his ears that he can’t shift, the echo of the Empty’s scream.

His whole body is shaking again, every nerve on high alert. He manages to push past Eileen, towards the bucket he’d put there since the night he almost shot himself in the face, and vomits nothing but stomach acid. His gut clenches down on the hollowness inside him and he gags, but there’s nothing left to bring up. Someone - Eileen, he thinks - is making shushing sounds. His head is still ringing like a bell, so her words aren’t discernable, but her hands rub slow circles into his back and he finds the motion soothing, adjusting his breathing to the same rhythm. 

‘Tell me it worked,’ he mumbles, voice shot, only just understandable to his own ears. And then he remembers that without seeing his lips there’s no way she can know what he’s saying. 

He wipes a trembling hand down his face, shifting back on his heels. He looks to Eileen, who keeps up her soothing circles and repeats his question.

But she doesn’t answer. Instead, behind him, the first words he hears are, ‘Hello, Dean.’

He turns his head so quick, his stomach lurches with nausea once again. And there Cas sits, looking as pale and clammy as Dean feels, gingerly sitting upright.

Dean looks to Sam, a silent plea to answer the question Dean needs to know with more surety than his heart can take. Without a word, Sam holds a hand out in front of Cas’ face and hoists him up to his feet, wrapping him in a bear hug. 

His heart somersaults, and though he feels like he’s done nothing but fucking cry for the best part of a year, his eyes well up of their own volition. He was real, he was real, he was -

Undignified though it may be, he half crawls, half stumbles towards him, drawn like a moth to a flame. ‘Fuck,’ he whispers, shouts, as he barrells into Cas, burying his face into his neck. He feels Cas’ breath on his skin, feels his heart racing right alongside Dean’s own stuttering rhythm. Once upon a time he’d been able to keep a lid on this kind of outburst, given a perfunctory hug before choking down all emotion.

Now, he finds, he really doesn’t give a shit. Screw Sam and Eileen and Jack. The only thing he cares about right now is clinging to him with as much fierceness as Dean himself. Because he’s terrified if he lets go that Cas will just disappear again. 

It’s Cas that eases Dean back, hands cradling his face again, oh so gentle. But this time it’s infinitely better, because his skin is warm and calloused in places he’d never noticed before. He furnishes Dean with the most beautiful smile he’s ever laid eyes on, and he lights up with a levity Dean’s never seen before. ‘I can’t believe you found a loophole to the Empty,’ Cas says, looking at Dean like he’s never going to see him enough.

‘Yeah, well.’ His voice is thick. His hands shake, yearn to touch Cas, and with a jolt of delight realises that now he can. Cas’ heart beats rapid beneath Dean’s fingers, bird wings against a cage of ribs. ‘What’s one more pissed off cosmic entity in the grand scheme of our lives?’

‘If you guys are gonna start making out, can you at least give us some forewarning so I can walk out of the room first? And/or shield Jack’s eyes?’ Sam asks.

Dean throws his head back and laughs. He flips Sam off but takes a step back from Cas. Their hands gravitate towards one another however, Dean’s right linking with Cas’ left. ‘Alright, Lady Stoneheart,’ he says. ‘No need to be such a cut-throat kill-joy.’

Sam throws him a bitchface, a sight Dean hasn’t seen in  _ months _ and actual happiness clamours through his system, overloading it. ‘C’mon Sam,’ Eileen says, sliding her hand into his. ‘Give them a minute.’ She’s tugging him out of the room towards the upstairs within seconds. She has her foot on the first step when she calls back over her shoulder, ‘You too, Jack.’

‘Right,’ Jack says, shuffling off in Sam and Eileen’s wake, but Cas extracts himself from Dean’s grip and reaches out towards Jack. 

‘Thank you,’ Cas tells him. 

A half-smile tugs at the corner of Jack’s mouth, a tic Dean knows he’s picked up from Sam. ‘Just, don’t die again.’

Cas smiles. Dean’s heart flutters at the sight. ‘I will try my hardest not to.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kept the Crowley cameo out of the tags for the surprise of it. Because yes, the first instance of Crowley is actual Crowley. Also, if you've ever read anything else I've written, you'll know that I am often fond of bringing up the crypt scene and the opening of Goodbye Stranger because they still have never spoken about it and it has been SEVEN YEARS. unacceptable.
> 
> Original lyric for this chapter came in the form of 'And baby I would fall from grace, just to touch your face.' However, it was too spoilery for my liking. Now go listen to Don't Blame Me by Taylor Swift.


	9. Epilogue

_I'm gonna search for your love, right through Hell and Heaven  
Millions of years yet to come and in all dimensions   
I know that you'll always be my happy ending_   
_My happy ending_

_Oh, I know forever don't exist, but after this life I'll find you in the next._   
_So when I say forever, it’s the goddamned truth._   
_I’ll keep finding, finding you._

There’s a nervous energy under his skin as he washes his face and brushes his teeth. A slight bruise is starting to bloom across his temple where he’d hit his head falling to the floor. No doubt Jack will try to fix it up in the morning, but for now there’s no need to bother him. He ambles back to his room, his joints stiff, and though it feels like it’s his body that’s exhausted from its trip to the angelic afterlife, he knows it’s more likely his soul. 

Cas is where he left him, perched on the edge of the bed. The trench coat is sprawled beside him and he'd gotten as far as taking the tie from around his neck before apparently giving up. He stares off in the distance, eyes glazed over and unfocused on the blank stretch of wall opposite. With cautious steps so as to not startle him too much, Dean pulls the arm chair he'd reupholstered himself across the floorboards and sits down in front of Cas.

‘Hey.’

Slowly, achingly slow, Cas comes back to him. ‘Hello, Dean.’ He really is never going to get enough of hearing him say that.

‘You good?’ 

Cas contemplates the question then nods. ‘I feel exhausted. I’m not used to it. I think I’m going to enjoy sleeping tonight.’

Dean can’t help but smile. ‘That’s good though.’

‘It is?’ Cas asks, looking genuinely surprised.

‘If you’re all the way human -’

‘I am,’ Cas assures him.

‘Means I wasn’t wrong.’ A crease appears between Cas’ brow. Dean itches to smooth the lines away with his fingers, with kisses. He restrains himself. ‘You  _ do _ have a soul. No soul, no sleep.’

Happiness blooms across Cas’ face, making it harder to resist kissing him. ‘I love you,’ Cas tells him, the words bubbling up out of his mouth with ease. 

His breath hitches but he doesn’t even stumble over his words when he replies, ‘I love you too.’ The alarm clock on the nightstand ticks over to zeros, and Cas yawns so widely it cracks his jaw. ‘C’mon, Cinderella. Let’s get you to bed.’

Cas’ only response is to give him a withering look and unbuckle his belt. Dean’s mouth goes dry, a flush warming his face, completely unstoppable. He makes a point of standing, riffling through a drawer and handing over an old Henley and pyjama pants, all without looking directly at the literal former angel undressing in his bedroom. He’s a gentleman, damnit.

The springs of the mattress creak a little as Cas slides under the sheets, stares up at the ceiling. Dean makes quick work of shedding his own clothes, until he’s in nothing but his briefs and a faded tee. There’s no need for the question he feels he should ask, not when Cas looks over at him and quirks an eyebrow. 

He slips in beside him and shuffles his body as close as he dares. Cas takes pity on him and drags him over, his kiss warm, wet, and a little on the filthy side.

‘You definitely gonna be here when I wake up?’ Dean asks, the fear he was trying to keep a lid on momentarily choking him. 

‘Not unless I need to urinate.’

Dean barks a laugh, surges forwards and captures Cas’ lips again. ‘Okay. Okay that’s fair.’

Cas scratches his blunt nails up Dean’s scalp. It sends shivers down his spine. ‘Do you remember what I told you the first night we met, Dean?’

Dean pitches his voice low and says, ‘I’m the one that gripped you tight and -’ Cas cuts him off with a swift kiss and a roll of the eyes.

‘The other thing I told you.’

He sighs, the memory a vivid flash of lightning and shadow, of dark wings ghosting the wall. ‘Good things do happen.’

‘Yes,’ Cas says firmly. ‘You asked me to trust you in the Empty. Now I’m asking you to trust me here. Good things do happen.’

‘Okay,’ Dean whispers. ‘I can try.’

Cas’ fingertips ghost along his hairline, down his cheeks, mapping the curves of his brow and his jaw. ‘ _ When mountains crumble to the sea, there will still be you and me _ .’

Dean stills. ‘Did… did you just quote Zepp at me?’

A coy smile plays across Cas’ lips. ‘Did it work?’

‘Smug bastard,’ he says. ‘You know it did.’ 

They lay together for a long time, exchanging heated kisses and lazy touches. It’s only when Cas’ eyes are almost too heavy to open that Dean takes pity on him and simply nuzzles up close and holds him tight. ‘Sleep,’ he whispers and after a time Cas’ breath evens out.

As he curls his body around Cas’, a vague memory flitters through his brain, of standing in an ethereal plane alongside Tessa, reaping a man who’d just died of a heart attack. He’d asked what life had meant, and Dean had told him it was all dust in the wind. ‘That’s it?’ The guy had sounded so outraged. ‘A Kansas song?’

Turns out he was probably closer to the truth than he’d realised at the time. He lays his weary head to rest on the pillow and knows he won’t be crying anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the ending is incredibly cheesy but don't @ me. I tried several ways of finishing this off and they quickly barrelled into sickly sweet and out of character because I was an excitable child.
> 
> Please share some kudos and comment if you got this far. And thank you for reading.


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